elanya

Ye and each of you are adjudged and sentenced to be carried back to the Place from whence you came, from thence to the Place of Execution, and there within the Flood-marks to be hanged by the Neck 'till ye are Dead, Dead, Dead. And the Lord have Mercy upon your Souls.

After this, You [names], are to be taken down, and your Bodies hung in Chains

(From the 1722 trial for piracy of Roberts' crew at Cabo Corso Castle).

I am going through 1784 papers form the Bahamas, and one of the things I am looking at are sale adds, to see what kinds of goods they could get 9at least in Nassau) and where they were from.

Some of the lists are pretty random, so here is one add, recopied in its entirely for your entertainment. I like the last few entries especially ^-^
The spelling and capitalization are as they appear, and I preserve the formatting of the original, more or less :p

JUST IMPORTED
in the Ship SALLY, Capt. Crosskill, from LONDON,
and to be Sold by
JEREMIAH TINKER
For Cash, Bills of Exchange, Cotton, Lignumvitae, Braziletto, Mahogany, Fustick and Ebony
Old Red Port by the Cask, Hamper or Dozen
Lisbon ditto in Hampers
An Assortment of Cutlery
Ditto of Turnery
Ditto of Ship Chandlery
Iron-Mongery
Dry Goods, consisting of a variety of superfine Broad Cloths, air balloon colours
Clouded Cottons and Cashmires
Men’s, Womens and Childrens Shoes
An Assortment of Buttons, with Trimmings [and?] Cloths
Paints, Linseed Oil, fine Sallad ditto
Walnuts, Anchovies, Capers, Onions, [G????], Mangoes
Vinegar by the Hogshead or half Hogshead
Mustard, perfumery
Cordage from 7 to 9 Thread Rattling
Candles per Box
Hats, black and white, Ladies Air Balloon [it’s a kind of hat -_-]
An Assortment of Nails, Queen’s Ware
Casavah barley, Split Pease, Butter b[eans?]
Quadrants, Spy Glasses
Whale Harpoons, lances, &c, &c.

Eventually I decided that it is not worth my time (or, more importantly, my money) to call long distance to HI from the hotel - I may as well call ld from the comfort of my own home, so I will put off calling the methodist minister a while longer.

This is probably for the best, as it wound up taking me much much longer to get my mailing done than I'd intended. There was something of a fetch quest involved, and I think I was at the post office about four times. So, if you get Bahamas mail from me, you'd better appreciate it ;)

I had subway for lunch again (it is relatively cheap, and close), and then headed to the archives,. As i said, there wasn't anything I *needed* to find at this point, but a few things I wanted to see. I would up copying the proclamation from 1788 (I think) when the king officially bought out all the Proprietary land claims. This is a nice bit of closure for me, since I like the proprietary period and the lasting chaos they inflicted on land tenure. It is also interesting because it gave anyone who had a grant from the proprietors or their leasees (that would be Woodes Rogers or the Bahama Company) a yer to show (and thus validate) their claim, or their land would be declared officially vacant and thus could be granted again to someone else. n I shoul say that there were place, I think mostly on Harbour Island and Eleuthera, where the land was never actually officially granted. People just always lived there. The other helpful thing I found was the grant to lord Dunmore (who was governor) for the town of Dunmore on HI. See above re: 'vacant' land, chaotic land tenure, etc. It was actually a grant to Lord Dunmore 'and some 130 others', which I found interesting. Anyway, I now have read it, I have notes, all is good. The other thing I found that is interesting but not important at all is the articles of the surrender of the islands to Spain under Maxwell in 178...something. I didn't write it down, but I had wanted to see it, and to see what all was recorded during the brief Spanish period. The answer: not much. Of course they were only there about a year max...

It was raining when I walked back from the archives. It wasn't raining hard though, so I wasn't actually wet. It was sort of, not nice maybe, but fitting? last year there was a downpour every afternoon as I headed home, but this was the first time my whole trip where it's rained much while I was outside. It sprinkled a bit when I was at Preacher's Cave, I suppose. So, the second, then.

I treated myself to some cocnut maccaroon ice cream, in a sugar cone (it is always ice cream weather), then came back to the room to unwind a bit. Headed out for dinner eventually. Still aiming on the cheap side, I went to Sbarro, where I got some curry. It was surprisingly spicy for fast food, and I think that an American joint wouldn't have been as accepting of all the bones in the chicken. But hey, that's curry! It was pretty good, in any case.

And then, a night in. I'd planned to go out wandering some along the beach, but it was still inda blah and rainy, so I came home, chatted, watched some internet videos and packed. And now I'm showered and lying in bed and my alarm is set, and I think I'm good to go tomorrow! I should go to sleep, but I'm still puttering about the internet.... sooon.

I leave tomorrow, but early enough that i don't expect I'll be able to get anything done. Alas I won't actually get *home* until around midnight, I expect (and assuming my flights all go smoothly).

I think I have accomplished most of what I am going to be able to do here. I would like to call the methodist Minister, and do some token work at the archives, but other than that, I dunno. I want to mail some stuff (this time after making sure I know where the post office is), so maybe I'll do that this morning and archive it up in the afternoon?

I admit that I'm well ready to go home - I think my trip was probably exactly just long enough for what I needed. My goal in life now is not to freak out about finances when I get home. Oh also I need to organize all the data I've gathered here into something that will make sense to me when I come back to it later.

Now I'm going to get dressed and go find breakfast. Wheee!

I met the Lawlors today. Very nice people, and very helpful. They gave me some more old maps and promised more images and information should I need it. I must get a copy of their book when it becomes available (pre-ordered on Amazon, woot)! It seems like it will have all kinds of exceedingly useful things. There is even a chapter on shipbuilding! Of course, most of that focuses on the later period, but should still be helpful. They also have a house on the island, which will probably give me another place to dig. They were extremely excited that someone wanted to do archaeology there. It is all very encouraging!

I really didn't get much else accomplished today. I did pick up a map from Lands and Surveys, but it is of horrible quality, and practically useless for my purposes. There's 15$ down the drain! I don't think it is possible to get a better one, either. *sigh*

I didn't make it to the archives, and I didn't get a chance to call the methodist minister at HI. There is always tomorrow though! I'm not even sure there is anything else I *need* at the archives that i can think of. One of the maps I got today was Thomas Walker's 1702 map of Harbour Island. And we all know how much I love Thomas Walker don't we? If I knew for sure he was a native Bahamian, he's be my favourite native Bahamian historical figure. But I don't think he was. for someone who loves pirates as much as I do, I seem to like a lot of pirate hunters, don't I? But walker is also The Apple Guy. And the chief justice hat refused to go! He was a bit fantastic. This wasn't quite as exciting as seeing the Cockram map, because they only had a copy, but still exciting!

Speaking of pirate hunters and my favourite historical figures, I finally had my dinner at the British Colonial Hilton (where Fort Nassau used to stand) that I've been promising myself since last year. I wrote a letter to <3WR. They had a dessert buffet, and it was very quiet. An enjoyable dinner, and not at terrifyingly expensive as I'd feared.

I hve a few things on my mind right now, however.

The first is that i'm not sure if i should apply to give a paper on Harbour Island and the maritime cultural landscape stuff that I have been working on at SHA this year (in Toronto), or if I should give some kind of paper at the SAA (which I'd like to do, and I know there will be a Bahama session), or both? That's a big money commitment though. SHA is in Toronto. I don't remember where the SAAs are next year. Oh, Atlanta. So, I dunno! but the regualr abstract submission for SHA ends on the... err, yesterday. Hrm. So an extra 25$ fee if i get something in by July 1st. I kind of feel like I have to go to SHA - I haven't missed one in forever, and it is in Toronto. But really. Really? I dunno :x I guess if I don't go home for Christmas it would be pretty easy to swing! And Dad and Jennifer are thinking about Texas themselves...

I'm having trouble getting started today.

I need to have breakfast still, even, and make a plan. I need.... to get out fo bed. ugh. maybe taking yesterday off completely was not such a great plan.

....

Okay, breakfast consumed, tentative plan formulated.

-I'm going to go to Lands and Surveys and see about getting an ORS map of Harbour Island and Northern Eleuthera.
-I'm going to come back here and call the Lawlers
-I'm going to try calling the methodist minister on HI since I never got a hold of her while I was there
-I'm going to go to the archives and try and fine Lord Dunmore's land grant from 17 *cough*date*cough*.

Yessss....

I have interest from a few people, and at least ambivalence from some others. I probably have enough to try and get *something* out of the work. Almost better than any of this, however, I have a map @_@. Not just any map. A map that is references in the colonial office records as having mysterious disappeared! Well, no, that makes it sound wrong. Woodes Rogers (yes seriously!) commissioned it and sent it over during his first term as governor, and it never arrived. But that places it in precisely the period that most interests me! It fills me with so much excitement that I almost couldn’t write anything more about my day. I should say that I got this from Fax Guy, who shall henceforth be known as Map Guy. His father bought it in London in the 50’s or 60’s. have a copy of the bill of sale, some information that came with the map, and some info that I think his father put together about how this might be the most important historical document in the Bahamas and how several of the sites on it should be national monuments. I dunno if I would go so far in all cases, but it is highly certainly significant! And important to *me* ;) He also lent me a few old books, one of which I looked through last night and copied out some useful (or at least interesting) bits.

In the afternoon I finished collecting house names and talked to a few more people, then brought my list to the real estate lady. So, hooray for that! I hope it will work out, though Map Guy didn’t sound very encouraged. We shall see, anyway.

Evening was more of the same, though a shorter stay at the beach so that I could get back and look at those books, and bed by around ten. The island has bee having some problems with the power plant, I think, and the power has gone out a number of times in the past few days, so I wasn’t able to get on earlier to check e-mail or anything. Hopefully it will be up tomorrow morning. I am going to go try the administrator’s office again around nine though. So we’ll see.

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Addendum - Hunting Bureaucrats

I missed the Administrator this morning, so I think I am going to stay in for now, and hope I hear from her office through the B&B... I would ask if anyone has called for me here but no one is in at the moment. I also need to ask if it is okay if I have a late checkout tomorrow and see if I had reserved a golf cart for tomorrow or not. Bleh!

Another good day! I’m back at the hotel for the evening – everything here closes down around 8. I went to dinner at The Clay Oven, which is a really good Indian place I went to twice last time. It is reasonably priced for what it is, but probably not some place I should be making a habit of going on my grad student shoestring ;) Afterwards I walked along the beack out to Arawak Cay, thnking of maybe having a drink at oen of the little places at the fish fry, but it was mostly all closed and I wasn’t in the mood anyway, so I just ambled back towards town, stopping for a while to watch the waves and seagulls.

Earlier this afternoon, after much ultimately pointless faffing about, I made it to the archives, to find that the close about 45 min after than I expected these day. Woo-hoo! Also, the historical society Museum now allows non-flash photography, so I was able to get a picture of Thomas Walker’s gravestone, which I came across last year and so delighted me. Now I can have a picture in my dissertation, whenever I write it :V I’ll post it later, when I can remember to take it off my camera.

My unproductive faffing was not actually entirely unproductive, either. I wanted to try and contact a woman that has done some pretty extensive historical research on Harbour Island. She and her husband have actually published a book on the place, though I didn’t get back to the island bookstore here before they closed to see if they carry copies. Clearly, this is something I should read! And I should talk to her, only I couldn’t find her in the phonebook. So I’ll see if there is an online version, or ask at the AMMC tomorrow. I think I am still supposed to go back – I wanted to look at the equipment and facilities they have there. The wet lab is up at Fort Charlotte. But Dr. Tinker said that I could use their screens, buckets, etc. Now, Kevin did warn me not to rely too much on that sort of offer, but I am going to take it at face value for now while also looking in to my other options. If I really *don’t* have to buy anything for this fieldwork, that will be best. Unless people fall all over themselves to give me buckets of money, which I’m (overly) optimistically not ruling out just yet! However Dr Tinker also said that in terms of holding collections and such there would be no fees and such for a student run project… Anyway, it’s been an encouraging start, we’ll see how it goes from here :) I have someone on HI I want to try and contact still. I and going to see if I can find somewhere to fax him a letter, but if not, I’ll call him tomorrow before I go back to the archives.

Right now I am looking in to ways to send free faxes over the internet. If anyone has any suggestions/recommendations in that regard, please let me know! I am also going to see if i can snag a meeting with Dr. Saunders at the archives since everyone tells me I should meet and talk to her too.